


You Can't Fix What Isn't Broken

by Silvermoxy



Category: Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters
Genre: F/M, M/M, Post Finale, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-29
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2017-12-16 12:58:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/862281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silvermoxy/pseuds/Silvermoxy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six years after the final battle with Enter, he has revived...again. Hiromu's determined to change the ending this time around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Enter's Revival

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfic in a LONG time, and I currently lack a beta. So forgive any non-blatant mistakes, and please point out anything to egregious so I can fix it. Starts out slow, sorry about that.
> 
> My attempt at a multi-chapter, epic story of love and redemption featuring Enter/Hiromu. Other relationships in the background, but not the main focus. Warning might change as story progresses.

The room was little more than a storage closet, lit only by the soft green glow of a computer on standby. The PC was at least eight years old, ancient by any tech standard, but reliable and still perfectly serviceable. As it demonstrated just as its internal clock changed from 12/31/18 11:59pm to 1/1/19 12:00am. The glow from the box intensified, turning momentarily from green to orange. The air shimmered, data symbols swirling into a slender form.

Enter looked around, the darkness no hindrance to his eyes, a small sneer of disgust on his face. “Non non non! This is not right. I failed. How could I have failed?”

He reached out, a graceful hand hovering over the ancient machine, now making a rather distressed noise after the rebirth of the Vaglass avatar. A card resolved in the air, grey and white with the number 1 printed on it. He had to move quickly. The Go-Busters normal response time to an energy spike of this size would be scant minutes. The card was tucked away safely and he reached for the door handle.

Much had changed; however, in the six years of peace since what the Go-Busters assumed was his final death. The energy spike had been duly noted, recorded and reported to the Energy Management Center. But no alarms blared or lights flashed. No one was even in the office at midnight. A notice popped up on Morishita’s screen, but he was out of town with his wife Miho Morishita (formerly Nakamura), and their new infant son, visiting relatives. Kuroki hadn’t the heart to refuse to let them both go on vacation at once, not since things had been quiet for so long. When morning arrived, the energy spike was noticed by the younger replacement employee. But nothing had blown up in the intervening eight hours, so it was simply noted on the full report to give to Morishita when he returned.

And so, when Enter peeked his head out of that server room, he saw only a deserted basement hallway, if anything even more grimy and neglected than the day he had first had the Buglers transport this backup down here, shortly after Messiah had been defeated in the sub dimension. A thought and his outfit transformed, black jeans and a grey sweatshirt proclaiming the name of the university that had been his “home” for the past six years. He looked almost like a normal college student, except for the trademark white goggles. He needed data, current data, as his was so sorely lacking. For now the university library would have to do.

One hour later, after negligible time spent bypassing the security measures surrounding the university library, and a considerable time longer spent slipping carefully around the safeguards keeping the general public from accessing government safety records, he had found and downloaded everything still available from public cameras that captured “his” fights with the Go-Busters. It was surprisingly large amount of data. He had only skimmed most of it, wanting to be out of here as soon as possible. His plan had been going so well, it seemed, until the last day. He watched his Megazord be led out of the city into an area without camera coverage…then nothing. What had happened? He needed more data, but was at a temporary loss on how to obtain it. It was time to go. He stood up, disconnecting from the computer at a desk tucked into the very back of library. His other senses had been busy on lookout while his mind was gathering camera footage and disaster reports, but a quick review showed only the sigh of an A/C unit in need of replacing, and little else. The small window by his desk overlooked the building where he hiding place had rested, but his eyes detected no movement at all. It was all so very wrong. Enter gazed thoughtfully at the copy machine by the entrance, but his better judgment recommended against it. Since he had failed once already, it suggested a change of tactics was in order. So no Metaroid tonight, he would be patient. He had waited years already after all; he could wait a bit longer.

Morishita and Miho returned from their vacation refreshed and happy to get back to work. Miho had about half a dozen new pictures of them, their son, and family members to decorate her desk with. He shook his head fondly as his replacement bowed and returned control of his workstation. He thanked the young man profusely for his help and efforts during his absence, and sat, opening the first report to catch up on.  
It wasn’t long before he discovered the odd discrepancy. Only a few moments more to pull up the camera footage of the college grounds that night. And perhaps two seconds for all the blood to drain out of his face, and terror to twist at his gut. It couldn’t be. They had won! His friends had sacrificed so much for that victory; their childhoods, their families, even Jin…

“Touru! What’s wrong?” He glanced up from the screen, his wife had already noticed his shocked state, of course she would have. His mouth opened but his throat closed up, and after a few failed attempts, she simply stood and walked over to him. Laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Tell me?”

He simply gestured at the screen in answer. She took in the video scene replaying over and over. A young man walked out of the side door to a non-descript building, made his way across the grass covered commons towards the camera, becoming clearer as he walked out of the tree lined shadows and into the light surrounding another building, highlighting the white goggles perched on his head. He reached a point under the camera and looked directly up into it, smirking. Any hope that this was simply a cosplay in bad taste died within her. The resemblance was perfect. Then the man lifted a hand, and wires shot out from his sleeve, disabling the camera.

As the video started to repeat, Morishita said shakily. “After that, the campus security went down for over an hour. But all the alarms were bypassed. I don’t think anyone even noticed.”

Miho’s hand tightened on his shoulder. “We have to tell Kuroki-san. Enter has been revived, for days, who knows what he’s been up to?”


	2. The only casualty was the teapot

Lunch time and Hiromu was headed to his favorite hole in the wall restaurant a few blocks from the Energy Management Center. The place was tiny, barely more than a three-seater, so he had left Nick back at the Center. 

“Ça va, Red Buster?” A familiar voice stopped him mid-stride. 

Enter sat alone, at a small café table with a pot of tea and a plate of small iced cakes. His eyes carefully took in every aspect of Hiromu’s appearance, the longer hair, partially tied back, the brown pilot’s jumpsuit, finally resting on his quite bare wrist. “Oh should I say former-Red-Buster?” 

“Alright, I must be going insane.” Hiromu stared in surprise and disbelief and pressed one hand against his temple like he was coming down with a headache. “I’m overworked and finally snapped. That’s the only logical explanation for this.”

Enter laughed, but his smile was razor edged, “Non non non! The only logical explanation is that you were all quite wrong to think I’d ever die so easily.”

“Easily?!” Hiromu’s heart lurched in his chest and he went from disbelief to anger instantly. “What about any part of our fight was easy? The part where we had to kill our families? Maybe where Jin had to sacrifice himself to pull that damned Messiah card out of me!?” His hands curled into fists, “I might not have my Morpher with me, but if you think I need that to kick your ass, I’ll be glad to prove you wrong.”

“Ah, so that’s what happened in the sub dimension, I had wondered.” Enter was ignoring Hiromu’s anger, instead checking the tea pot. “Lovely, it’s done.” He poured himself a cup and pondered his selection of tiny cakes intently, while Hiromu practically vibrated with suppressed rage next to the table. Eventually the avatar looked up and sighed. “Sit.” He gestured to the seat across the table.

“I already know you’re mad. But if you think…”

“SIT.” It was not a suggestion. “Have some tea. We’re in one of the busiest shopping districts at midday. There are at least one hundred and fifty people in a thirty foot radius of us at this moment. Even without your Morpher, the damage we could do in seconds would be devastating to anyone caught in our path.”

“Since when do you even care?”

“I don’t, particularly.” One slim shoulder raised in a half-shrug. “But I know you do. So sit, have some tea, and we’ll chat like civilized beings.”

Hiromu glanced around, but he knew that Enter was correct. Even if he had his Morpher, it had been over four years since he had last used it. Since this version of Enter didn’t appear nearly as homicidal as the original, he sat. Maybe he’d get some decent intel to take back to Kuroki and the others. “You’re a copy aren’t you?”

Enter laughed again, actually managing to sound a bit delighted. “You’ve grown, and gotten smarter. Or at least more observant.” He poured some tea into the second cup. “Plans within plans, backups within backups. I won’t bore you with the details, but you are correct.”

“You don’t remember that Jin had to sacrifice himself for us to finally defeat you. That means you’re a copy from before our final fight. From when?”

“That would be telling, Red Buster.” Picking up a cake, Enter finished it off in two slow bites, taking his time, enjoying watching Hiromu stew with impatience. “You humans do keep meticulous records. It’s been quite useful for catching up with recent history. Most of it at least…. After the Energy Management Center deemed the Vaglass no longer a threat, they turned all the data gathered on the sub dimension over to researchers. They’ve published some fascinating papers, although not all their theories are correct. There’s just enough in them that I was able to glean some of what happened that day. However I was hoping you might fill in some of the gaps.”

“Why would you think I would help you even this much?” Hiromu sat back, crossing his arms over his chest. “You’re nothing but a lonely avatar with no Messiah cards, no Megazords waiting in the wings now that the sub dimension is gone.” Now it was Enter’s eyes widened in shock at the raw emotion behind those words for a fleeting moment, and Hiromu’s heart lurched again, before he ruthlessly squashed any reaction.

Barely suppressed rage caused Enter’s hands to tremble as he set his teacup down ever so gently on the tabletop. “Perhaps I was incorrect in my earlier assessment. If you were mature, you’d realize the folly of your words. I’ll admit I’m not as much of a threat to you Go-Busters as I was six years ago. But surely you know how fast that can change. I was hoping for a simple exchange of information, as I have not yet done anything to warrant such hatred. But if you’re going to be like that…consider, you and Blue and Yellow Buster might be beyond my capabilities to destroy now, but your friends and families are not.” As he spoke, he raised one hand, the cables creeping out from the sleeve, braiding together to form a thin but strong rope which snaked out towards the vase on the table, crushing the flowers it contained. “Necks and limbs are so fragile. Nothing to protect them from me. I could kill dozens before anyone was the wiser.”

Hiromu reached out, snagging those wires with his super speed. “No Enter, they have me and Ryuuji and Yoko to protect them. We won’t let you harm anyone else, ever again.”

“Do you really think you can? Protect them? How long has it been since the last time you transformed? Where’s your Buddyroid? I’ve been wandering around Tokyo gathering data for a week already, Red Buster, and no one’s done a damned thing to stop me.” Enter smirked at him, but the expression was wiped off his face only a moment later when Hiromu jerked him forward, one hand fisting into the fabric of his jacket, pulling him close. They upset the table, the teapot turning over and spilling out, people turning to stare. They and the mess were ignored as Hiromu leaned in to whisper in his ear. 

“Wrong. We were all willing to die to take you out, and that hasn’t changed over the years. Our resolve is stronger than yours, even after you evolved. That’s why we’ll always win Enter, and you will always lose. No matter how many backups you make.” The avatar was shoved away roughly, almost tipping over in this chair. Hiromu stood, breathing hard, “And stop calling me Red Buster. I have a name, use it, you know, like a civilized being.”

Enter looked shaken, if that was even possible. He spread his hands out in a placating gesture. “Fine, I see this conversation isn’t going to get us anywhere, so I’ll take my leave now.” He looked down at the dripping wreckage on the table. “And I’ll let you take care of this mess, since you caused it. Salut, Hiromu.” The last said in a mocking tone as the avatar disappeared in a familiar burst of orange code. The ace pilot cursed to himself as he went inside to see if there was a tab to settle, get some napkins to wipe off the tea he had spilt on himself; and perhaps gives himself a few moments to calm down before he had to call this in to the Center. This scenario had run through his head a thousand times before, but of course, it had gone far different than any fantasy he had ever dreamed up.

He was just finished paying when his cell phone rang. It was Kuroki. “Hiromu, I know you’re on lunch but please report back to the Center right away. We have a serious problem.”

“Enter, right?”

“Morishita just informed me. How did you know?” The Chief sounded genuinely surprised.

“I just had a run in with him downtown. No, I’m fine and the only casualty was a teapot. I’ll give a full report when I get back.”


	3. The Go-Busters reactivated

After arriving back at the Center, Hiromu went straight to Kuroki’s office. The command center had been shut down eventually, when the Go-Busters had moved on to different parts of their lives. So now Kuroki had a nice big office on the top floor, with Touru and Miho both just below. When he arrived, everyone but Yoko, Usada and J were already there. Nick and Gorisaki were huddled in a corner, the humans clustered around Kuroki’s desk; both groups talking quietly amongst themselves.

In fact, Ryuuji was already back in uniform. He was fiddling nervously with his Morphin Brace. The Commander looked up, acknowledging Hiromu’s entrance. 

It took only a few minutes to catch Hiromu up on the manner of Enter’s re-emergence, and for him to report the details of his first encounter with the villain. 

“It was really odd, actually. He was acting almost…civil? I admit I lost my temper, once the shock wore off, and insulted him. I might have been able to get more information if I’d been able to keep him talking."

“That’s alright. Right now, I’m glad it didn’t devolve into a full-out fight in such a crowded area.” Kuroki sighed and rubbed his eyes, considering his next move. “We’ll have to reopen the Command Center. Once Yoko, Usada and J arrive later this afternoon, we’ll need the enhanced tracking and transportation abilities. Enter might not be able to summon Megazords from the sub-dimension any longer but some Metaroids did end up growing. And we have to assume that he might be able to hijack the new Megazords we’ve been building. They don’t have the protections that your Buster Machines have. I’ve already alerted the Center’s programmers and engineers, but any solution is going to take time to implement. We’ve been lucky that Enter has been laying low for this long, but I believe that his revealing himself to Hiromu means he might change that behavior soon. We have to be prepared.” 

He looked up at his subordinates. “Can I count on you to make sure that everything down in the Command Center is up and ready to go as soon as possible?”

“Of course!” They both saluted in unison and grabbed their tablets and paperwork, already planning as they made their way out the door. 

The Commander sighed again and leaned back in his chair. “I’m so sorry that this has happened. I truly hoped that after the second battle in the sub-dimension, when we…lost Jin, that this was all over. That you would all get to live out the rest of your lives with only ordinary worries.” He stood and crossed his arms. “But it appears that won’t be possible. As of now, the Go-Busters are reactivated. Ryuuji has the coordinates of Enter’s first appearance. Your mission is to go and gather any information from the site. We’ll inform you when your teammates arrive.”

Hiromu and Ryuuji saluted as well. Turning to the Buddyroids Ryuuji said, “Since we probably won’t need Powered Morphin why don’t you guys go help the Morishita’s get the Command Center ready? Hiromu, I’ll go grab a car from the garage and bring it around front. Do you have a uniform here?”

The Red Buster grimaced and looked over his regular pilot jumpsuit. “I don’t even have my Brace here. They’re both at home. We’ll have to swing by on the way and pick them up. Now that Enter’s back I feel naked without them.”

“Aaaand…with that disturbing mental image, I’ll meet you out front.” The Blue Buster grinned to show he was joking and punched Hiromu lightly on the shoulder before leaving. 

Hiromu and the Buddyroids followed, but Nick stopped him in the hallway as the others strode off.

“Ne, Hiromu, are you sure you don’t want me to come?” Even without any movable facial features, Nick was able to radiate extreme concern for his human.

“It’s OK, I honestly don’t think Enter’s foolish enough to have been staying in one place for so long. Once I have my Brace again, I’ll be fine.”

“Ahhh…” Nick looked unconvinced. “It’s not so much the fighting part I’m worried about. You never told anyone else what effects the…”

Hiromu cut him off. “And I’m not going to. It was a long time ago, and I’ve dealt with it. It doesn’t matter as long as we defeat him again. As many times as we have to, to protect the world. I’m not about to let my feelings mess with the mission.”

“Well, if you say so…” 

“I do. Now go, and help the others. I know they would appreciate it. And once the Command Center is up and running, you all can keep an eye on us from there.” Hiromu gave Nick a gentle push down the hall. As he made his own way down to the entrance, his smile fell away.

Being the human host to the thirteenth Messiah card had had some disturbing effects, even after the data itself had been separated from his own. But he hadn’t lied to Nick. The obsession that had developed with Messiah’s first avatar even after Enter’s death had never really dimmed. However, Hiromu was used to sacrifice. First his family, then Jin, then any hope at a normal relationship. He could kill Enter again, to protect the world, he had no choice. 

The ride from the Center to Hiromu’s house was spent in silence. As they pulled up in front of the driveway, Ryuuji noted Rika’s car. “I didn’t know your sister was visiting you. When did she arrive?” 

“Yesterday. She’s in town to negotiate a new book deal, so since I’ve got an extra room, she always stays with me.” His head thumped the headrest as he covered his eyes with one arm. “I’ve got to explain that we’ve been reactivated, and warn her to be careful. Enter threatened our loved ones this time, and now I’ve got Rika, and her family.”

“Ah yeah. Your niece just turned three didn’t she?” Ryuuji looked wistful for a fleeting moment. “Think you can convince Rika to head back to Kyoto?”

Hiromu laughed, “Not likely. But I’ll give it a shot. Come on it, you can run interference while I get dressed.”

As it turned out, he was correct. Rika noticed Ryuuji’s change in uniform right away. “I haven’t seen you wear that in years!” She gave the Blue Buster a friendly hug in greeting, and then held him at arm’s length, assessing his clothes. “But why are you wearing it now? And why are you and Hiromu here in the middle of the day?”

“Ahhh…well, you see Rika-san” Ryuuji stared down at his shoes for a moment. “Something’s happened. But I think Hiromu wants to explain it to you.”

Rika’s smile fell, and she stepped away. “No way. Please tell me you’re joking.”

Hiromu opened the door to his room and stepped out, jacket in one hand and Brace in the other. “I’m so sorry Rika. Enter’s been revived somehow, which means Vaglass is back, even if in a limited fashion. Kuroki has reactivated the Go-Busters. Our other teammates are headed back into town now.” He tried to shrug into the jacket, and found that it was too small across the shoulders. He left it unzipped to keep some range of motion and strapped the Brace to his wrist. “I’m hoping we can finish this quickly and get everything back to normal.”

Rika gathered her little brother into a hug. “Of course I’m not happy about this, but you guys won twice already, I’m sure you will this time too. Just…be careful please? You aren’t twenty anymore.”

He hugged her back. “I promise we’ll be careful. You need to be too, ok? Enter specifically threatened our loved ones. How’s the book deal coming? Do you think you might be able to wrap it up early and head back home?”

“It takes more than a day to negotiate a contract to illustrate a whole series. But I understand. I’ll see what I can do to move things along quickly. And I’ll call Shuma and have him take Miu up to visit his parents in the mountains. They’re so far away from the city that the township still runs mostly on solar panels and wind, not Enetron.”

Hiromu grinned “That’s a great idea. Keep your eyes open and if anything suspicious happens, call me and the Center. We’ll be here right away.”

“Of course! I do feel sorry for Yoko-chan though. Her wedding’s in only a couple months! I hope this is resolved by then!”

Hiromu and Ryuuji just shared a look of mutual horror, said goodbye hastily and retreated back to the SUV.

“Arg, I can’t believe I forgot about the wedding!” Hiromu slid into the passenger seat. “I hope all this doesn’t get in the way of Yoko’s big day.”

Ryuuji yanked on the seatbelt so hard the strap almost snapped. “You weren’t there when Kuroki called her to let her know we’d been reactivated. We were on speaker phone. You could hear him in the background trying to convince her not to come. Like this part of her life was over, and she didn’t owe us enough consideration to help fight.”

Hiromu stared at his friend in concern. He’d never heard such vitriol out of Ryuuji unless the man had overheated. “Well, perhaps he was just concerned for her safety. Wouldn’t any man want to protect his future wife?”

“It’s not just that. You weren’t in town when she came back from college to introduce him to us. I just don’t like him. Neither does Usada, you know.”

“Yeah, Nick’s mentioned that I think. But you know, I always figured that Usada would never approve of ANY man Yoko decided on.” He thought the same applied to Ryuuji , even if he wasn’t about to say so out loud, he had matured that much at least. “But Yoko IS coming back. She wouldn’t abandon us, we are her family.”

Ryuuji didn’t look at him as he accelerated onto the freeway. “Yeah we are. Perhaps all this, at least will remind her of that.”


	4. The calm before the storm

Ninety minutes later and the Busters had poured over every inch of the building that Enter had revived in and the campus library. Touru had gotten his station up and running, and had been able to home in on the area where the Enetron spike had come from. It didn’t take them long to find the old and unused server room in the basement. The equipment itself would be headed back to the Center for study, the University had readily agreed to that. But no other clues remained. The school didn’t keep their surveillance recordings for more than 3 years, unless an official investigation requested them in that time frame, so any hope of finding out when Enter had set up this backup had been long since erased.

Blue Buster called into the Center. “We’ve got the equipment loaded and are on our way back. I don’t think we’ll get any more information out of this place.”

Miho answered, “Alright, I’ll let the Commander know. Please pull into Loading Dock 4 when you get back and I’ll have staff waiting to unload it.”

“Understood.” Ryuyji signed off and turned to look at Hiromu. “Want to pick up some food on the way back?”

“Yes please!” Hiromu gave an enthusiastic thumbs up to that suggestion. “I missed lunch thanks to Enter, and I’m starving!”

So they were sitting in the newly reopened Command Center, eating fast food burgers and fries, watching the Buddyroids methodically clean the room, when their last two members arrived.

J showed up first, gaze sweeping over everyone present. “I have arrived! I require Enetron, it was a long walk!”

Hiromu choked on a fry and Ryuuji laughed, “Good to see you haven’t changed at all J. I think we’ve requisitioned some Enetron, if you can wait a bit it will arrive”

“Why would I have changed? It has only been six years. The forest changes only slowly. I will wait.” He snagged a chair at the main table and sat. 

Yoko and Usada arrived shortly after, entering with Miho who had a clip board and a measuring tape. 

“Thanks for ordering my new uniform Miho-san, I can’t believe I don’t fit my old one anymore.”

“It’s alright, I would be surprised if you did. After all, as the youngest you’ve done a lot of growing these past few years. The boys were pretty much done.”

Ryuuji snorted as he walked up and scooped Yoko into a bear hug. “You’re both just trying to make me feel old, aren’t you?” He twirled the Yellow Buster around and set her down “How have you been?”

Yoko declined to let go of Ryuuji right away, hugging him back. She grinned up at him, her once long hair now clipped short in a flattering wave around her face. “I’m doing well, I missed you, all of you. Speaking of…” She glanced around, “Where’s everyone?”

“Ah, Nick and Gorisaki are putting away the cleaning supplies, and the others are gathering their things to move back down here.” Hiromu waved at the racks holding their weapons and harnesses. “All our stuff is still here.”

“Hiromu!” He received his own hug. “Hey, looks like I’m not the only one who needs a new uniform!” Yoko grinned at him and tugged at the edges of his jacket.

He wandered over to Miho once Yoko released him, “Oh yeah, that reminds me, can you take my measurements for a new jacket too? This one is too small around the shoulders now.”

“Sure, take that off, we can have them ready in a couple days.” As Miho went to work with the measuring tape, Yoko and Ryuuji sat at the break area table. Yoko started stealing fries as she took in the recently cleaned and reactivated Command Center.

“Wow, I never thought we’d see the inside of this place again. You guys must have worked hard though, it looks good as new!”

Ryuuji gestured to encompass the whole room. “Wasn’t Hiromu or I. This is all thanks to Miho, Touru and the Buddyroids. We’ll have to do something nice to thank them later. Hiromu and I just got back from investigating the place where Enter revived.”

Usada giggled and looked up from his conversation with J. “Glad I was on my way in with Yoko and missed the cleaning party.”

Yoko stuck her tongue out at her buddyroid and took a sip of Ryuuji’s soda and eyed her old locker out of the corner of her eye. “Find anything interesting?” 

“Sadly no. A dead end I think, but perhaps the techs will be able to pull more data from the computers we brought back. Ahh…what are you doing?”

Yoko squealed happily as she pulled a handful of candy out from her locker. “Yay, chocolates! I must have left these here.”

“Those are at least four years old! Do not eat that!” Both Miho and Hiromu looked over at the commotion as Ryuuji started to chase Yoko around the break area table. She laughed and kept just ahead of him.

“They’re chocolate, I’m sure they’re fine!” She darted behind the spectators, as the door opened letting the other Buddyroids carrying armfuls of Enetron cans and the Commander and Touru into the room.

The atmosphere in the Command Center quickly settled back into its old rhythm. Miho and Touru ran the final checks on all the reactivated systems, Commander Kuroki signed off on all the authorizations to un-mothball the whole operation, the buddyroids gossiped in a corner, and the Go-Busters did the same around the break table.

“We are all so out of practice. How about we get tomorrow morning for range and sparring work?” Ryuuji asked as he made some notes in his phone, having given up on getting the chocolates from Yoko.

“Hmmm…sounds good. I’ll have to talk with Haruka first and get back to you.” Yoko pulled out her own phone and started tapping away.

Hiromu noticed that Ryuuji looked about ready to overheat at that comment. He wondered idly if he should say something first, and defuse the situation with his legendary tactlessness. After hearing about her fiancé almost non-stop since Yoko showed up, he was almost as concerned as Ryuuji. Some of this joker’s actions raised major red flags with him, but Yoko seemed oblivious to all of it. Perhaps someone should have had a conversation with her about what constituted a healthy romantic relationship before she packed off for college, but for the life of him, he couldn’t think of who might have been able to do so. They were all broken in that particular area, and the two most normal amongst them, Miho and Touru had still been dancing around each other like two scared middle-schoolers in a shoujo manga.

He stood quickly and laid a hand on Ryuuji’s shoulder. “Ne, there’s no reason to wait. It’s still early. Let’s put in a couple hours then go get dinner.”

Both the others readily agreed, and he started over to the knot of robots in the corner to snag J and invite the other Buddyroids along too, when the alarm went off, startling everyone and destroying the calm atmosphere in an instant. 

“Enetron spike! It’s huge!” Touru’s fingers clattered over his keyboard as he pinpoint the source. “It’s coming from Point H-34, the Central Family Registry building..? Eh, Enetron use is still climbing Sir!”

“Bringing up building cameras now.” Miho triggered the drop down screen as she connected it to the security system of the public building. The many camera views cycled for almost minute before Yoko shouted “There, that one in the upper left corner!” The picture expanded to fill the screen, and everyone could see what the Yellow Buster had spotted. 

It was Enter, in what appeared to be a server room, this one large and filled with racks of machines.

“Where is this?” Ryuuji turned to Touru. 

“It’s got to be the main server stack for Tokyo’s Family Registry. Bringing up a floor plan now. We’ve got a hatch less than a block from the building. But I’m concerned that the Enetron usage isn’t slowing down, at this rate it’ll burn out the building’s system soon.”

The Go-Buster’s studied the floor plan side-by-side with the image of Enter standing among the servers, the cables from both arms connecting him to the machines. 

Kuroki stood, commanding attention. “Go-Buster’s, your mission is to stop Enter, and whatever he is planning here. Your Buddyroids will remain here on standby in case they are needed.”

“Roger!”

J was already waiting in shooter 01 by the time the others had grabbed their harnesses. Instead of arguing, Hiromu rolled his eyes, and shoved him to one side so they could both fit. 

After the Go-Busters had been sent on their way, the others continued to monitor the large screen.

“Something’s changing. What’s that thing?” Gorisaki said, at the same time Touru said, “Enetron usage is finally dropping off.”

Everyone in the room watched as data and Enetron seemed to flow out of the servers into the air in front of the avatar. It started to compress, forming into a tiny shape, square and flat.

“No, it can’t be!” Kuroki said, but was proven wrong only a moment later as the object finished forming in the physical world. It was a Messiah card. “Zoom in on that!”

They managed to get a couple seconds of good footage before Enter snatched it from the air. It indeed resembled a Messiah card, superficially at least, but the colors were wrong, grey and white, instead of black and red.

“Bonjour my precious back up!” He caressed the card gently, holding it up. “You put up quite the fight, but it was only a matter of time before I managed to extract you. Now, let’s see what data you hold.”

Without further ceremony, the avatar shoved the card into his body, absorbing it. 

A moment later the door to the server room slammed open and the Go-Buster’s poured through, weapons ready.

As they rounded the largest bank of racks, coming into sight of the avatar, everyone could see as his smile faltered, he lost his balance and lurched sideways into a storage shelf, lines of fuzzy and disrupted code ripping their way down his form.

And Enter began to scream, high pitched cries of pain and terror.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author Notes:  
> Sorry this took so long to get up (KR OOO's ate my brain for awhile). And now the fic is trying to go in three separate directions in my head. =( I might just have to write out at least some of each path to see which I like best.
> 
> I know each city (district?) actually has their own Family Registry, but I figured I could take some creative license there.


	5. Second verse, same as the first

“Damn it!” Hiromu burst through the door to the Command Center and slammed his hands down on the table hard enough to rattle the huge piece of furniture. “He was incapacitated and we let him get away!”

After Enter had started to scream, almost a dozen Buglars had appeared, surrounding the Go-Busters. Lack of practice, close quarters, and attempting not to destroy the equipment that held the family registry information for the greater part of Tokyo had slowed them down just enough that by the time they were all dealt with, Enter had disappeared. 

It was not their finest moment, and the tenseness across Ryuuji’s shoulders and Yoko’s ferocious scowl proved the other Go-Busters were just as unhappy as Hiromu, if less vocal about it.

Kuroki was waiting for them by the large screen. “I understand your frustration, and I expect to see you all here tomorrow morning for training.” The team stared at him for a moment, and then one by one nodded their agreement, falling into old patterns almost subconsciously. 

“While you were on your way back, we believe we’ve made progress with information gathered from Enter’s original hiding place, and from the encounter this evening. Morishita?” Kuroki motioned for his second in command to take over.

“First, our techs have been pouring over the equipment Hiromu and Ryuuji brought back from the college. The file system and registry are showing pronounced irregularities. Nothing that stopped the server from functioning, but are we assume from Enter’s backup data. Second, we have already dispatched a team to do a full forensic work-up on the Family Registry’s server, and hopefully we’ll find the same irregularities. If so, we would be able to find any other card back-ups by finding systems displaying the same issues.”

“There have to be thousands of systems in Tokyo capable of holding that much data!” Ryuuji was less than impressed with this debriefing so far. 

Morishita just nodded placidly and continued. “True. However the Registry shared an important trait with the college server. Lack of oversight. As long as everything runs smoothly, only basic checks and upgrades, that by design ensure all data is preserved, are performed. Any large company that has intense server usage, closely spaced upgrades and an attentive IT staff would probably be unsuitable for Enter’s purposes. The good news is that leaves most of the likely candidates in government facilities, many of which we can get access to easily. Miho is working on a list of most likely to least likely candidates now, and we’ll have people looking over the systems just as soon as our team sends word back that our hunch was right. We’ll also send out a bulletin to all companies in the greater Tokyo area that a “virus” has been spotted that makes these sorts of changes, and if their tech support notices anything odd, to contact us.”

“Once we pinpoint an infected system, we’ll still need a way to get the card out.” The Commander stepped in again, drawing their attention to the screen playing a loop of footage showing Enter drawing the card out of the system, absorbing it, falling to the ground in obvious pain before managing to teleport away. “For now, we operate on the assumption that there is a back-up of every Messiah card. Enter has obtained one. We need a way to get the cards out of the system so he doesn’t get any more. Go-Busters, for now your responsibilities are to train back up to your previous level of competence as quickly as possible. Ryuuji, work on your current projects is suspended, when not training, please work with our techs on the card problem.”

Blue Buster saluted “Understood.” The others followed suite, except J, who for some reason was off in a corner talking on his cell phone.

Hiromu headed for the door, “I’m going to the gym. Anyone else coming?”

Ryuuji thought about it for a moment and shook his head. “I’ve got to make some changes to my lab, and snag the engineers I think I’ll need for this project. But I’ll definitely meet you guys in the morning.”

“I…” Yoko’s hand hovered over the pocket her cell phone was in momentarily before her expression hardened, “I’ll come with you Hiromu.”

By this time of evening, the gym was deserted. The pair moved over to the sparring mats and set about stretching in silence, which carried over into their first couple bouts. Eventually Yoko spoke up.

“Hiromu, do you think we’ve got a chance of finishing this before my wedding?” She ducked a punch and flipped backwards.

He followed closely, “I think that entirely depends on how fast we can find and destroy these new back-ups and on Enter too. He seemed, not quite the same, this time around. He was always unpredictable before, this will just make it worse.” It was his turn to dodge her punch, but he pressed forward right after. “Ne Yoko, are you sure about this guy? I haven’t met him yet, but some of your stories earlier made him seem kind of like an ass.” He yelped and had to scramble backwards to dodge a particularly vicious kick aimed at his head. 

Yoko stood and puffed out her cheeks, glaring. “Haruka loves me! And what do you know about it anyway? Have you even had a girlfriend since Reika-san dumped you?” Without waiting for an answer, she grabbed her stuff from the edge of the mat. “I’m done for the night. I’ll see you in the morning.” She left the room without looking back.

Hiromu collapsed to the mat, watching as Yoko encountered Nick entering the gym as she was leaving. She only nodded curtly to the Buddyroid, who waved and watched in confusion as she stalked off.

“You totally said something insensitive again, didn’t you?” Nick asked as he gave his friend a hand up.

“Yeah. Still, it was just an honest opinion.” Nick stared at him expectantly. “I sort-of called her fiancé an ass.”

The Buddyroid hid his face in his hands. “I really thought we were past this phase. I think this whole situation is making you regress.”

“Thanks. Thanks for that vote of confidence, Nick.” He grabbed a towel off a nearby rack and wiped the sweat off his face. “She went for the low blow too. Pointed out I haven’t dated since Reika.”

“Yeah well, when you call out someone else’s name during sex, especially a male someone, tends to be a bit of a relationship killer.”

“God. Why did I even tell you that?” Hiromu threw his hands up and glared at Nick.

“I’m pretty sure it’s because I’m not only your best friend, I’m your therapist. Come on, let’s go home.”


	6. Surprise!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author Note: Uh...hi there. Yes, it's been over three years since I updated.  
> No, I have no excuse.  
> But here, enjoy some light smut! I've updated the tags, to an "M", not sure if it will eventually rate an "E".  
> I've got a good chunk of Chapter 8 written, which won't do me much good until I sort out Chapter 7. I'm giving up on doing more than light proofreading for grammar and spelling, in an effort to get any future updates up quickly without stressing over them too much
> 
> \------------------

The next two weeks devolved into a frustrating game of cat and mouse, as Enter not-so-subtly tested the limits of the Go-Busters response time. Sometimes there would be Buglars, sometimes not. Every once in a while Enter would fight them himself instead of just laughing at them and teleporting away. He was still an annoying bastard, but wasn't exhibiting the creepy powers his prior incarnation had used to assimilate biological components into electronic and digital monsters. 

After the third or fourth false alarm in one day, the team would have been perfectly happy to stay in the Control Room and watch Enter traipse around doing absolutely nothing. But they all knew that as soon as they grew complacent was when the Avatar would strike. So they staggered back into the Command Room, cursing Enter, the Vaglass, and this whole insane situation. 

Yoko collapsed into a chair next to Haruka, who had only recently been given clearance to the Center after she had campaigned for her fiancé to be close by. The tall bleached-blonde reached out and wrapped one arm around Yoko’s shoulders, pulling her back against his chest. Yoko sighed and snuggled back against her fiancé, pulling out her phone and catching up on any Instagram posts she might have missed. She wasn't even pretending to pay attention to the debrief, but Hiromu didn't blame her, none of them were. 

Instead he watched as Haruka dropped a kiss against Yoko's temple, glaring daggers at Ryuuji over the woman's head. From the corner of his eyes, Hiromu could see that the Blue Buster was giving a pretty impressive death glare right back at the newcomer, and made a note to see if Nick could get the story behind that level of animosity out of Gorisake. He had a hard time believing Yoko could be that oblivious, but would bet she was ignoring it in hopes the problem would go away. 

Eventually Kuroki rambled to a stop, giving up as well. Blowing a breath out harshly he leaned over the strategy table gripping the edges tightly. 

"We can't keep going on this way." Hiromu tipped his chair back, meeting everyone's eyes to get their attention. "He's wearing us down, and eventually we'll be too late, or too tired. He knows that. The only way to beat him here is to get ahead of him and find those cards first."

Morishita cut in from the back of the room, where he was perusing a report that had been delivered just after the Go-Busters had returned. "You might get your wish, Hiromu." He waved the clipboard at them. "We finally got a ping back from our search algorithm on the government servers. There’s a card buried in the data on the Imperial Household Agency servers."

Everyone in the room winced, except J, who simply cocked his head to the side in confusion. 

"Getting access to those servers is going to be a major pain in the ass." Yoko finally engaged in the conversation, and Hiromu remembered she studied Political Science in college. More interesting than literature, but still required only the minimum of maths, he remembered her saying. 

"Those servers hold Imperial Household information going back a century, and digitized versions of ancient texts going back hundreds of years more. If there's even a chance the data could be lost or corrupted they're gonna dig in their heels."

Kuroki pushed off the table, motioning to Blue Buster. "Ryuuji, I need you to redouble your efforts with the engineers on finding a way to extract those cards safely. Yoko, tomorrow you, Miho, and I will sit down and brainstorm a way to approach the Agency about this that will ruffle the fewest feathers."

His gaze flicked over the team, "It's late enough now that we can hope Enter won't strike again today. Go get some dinner and head to bed."

The Go-Busters nodded. Kuroki wasn't talking down to them, but only Yoko could really be considered a young adult anymore. All these false alarms were great practice, getting them back up to fighting form, but they had also experienced an embarrassing number of accidents with their respective weak points in a short amount of time. 

There had been no progress on replicating the vaccination program since the Vaglass defeat, so as the only ones able to fight this particular threat, they wouldn't do their country or the world any favors by over extending themselves. They had to neutralize the threat Enter posed once and for all. If they didn't, he'd just be able to out-wait and outlive all of them.

After a chilly, awkward dinner with his fellow Go-Busters and Haruka, Hiromu excused himself and fled to his room. They had taken up residence in the dorms again, as it put them close enough to respond to any alarms, and no one had any idea how long they'd need to be on alert for.

He had a larger dorm room this time around, and had managed to squeeze a small couch and TV stand inside, besides the bed and desk. Nick didn't have to sleep, so the past couple weeks he had spent nights catching up with his fellow buddyroids. Hiromu was grateful, as it gave him some small measure of privacy. It wasn't a problem at his house, there Nick would either spend most of his time in the living room watching TV, cooking in the kitchen, or relaxing as a bike out in the garage. 

The lead Go-Buster grabbed a quick shower before collapsing in bed. He briefly considered the TV remote, across the room on his desk for a moment before shaking his head and flicking his fingers at the set instead. The TV pinged to life, and he idly flipped through the channels with what he referred to as his "machine"-sense. He could sense and control simple electronics, disrupt the flow of Enetron for a short time, and a few other simple tricks. It made writing reports or emails super easy, he never misplaced the remotes or his phone, but he'd never really explored the limits of this new power.

He'd only ever mentioned it to Nick, seeing as he had no choice but to do so. Hiding anything from his buddyroid was pretty much impossible. Now that he was together with Ryuuji and Yoko constantly, he wanted to ask them if they had experienced any similar extensions of their own abilities over time, or if it was as he feared, another manifestation of changes wrought by being host to the 13th Messiah card. But he was scared, because he strongly suspected it was the latter. He didn't regret getting the vaccination program, it had saved his life and he knew his parents had wanted him to have a chance to live. But it had manipulated of the very basic building blocks of his being. He was able to do things normal humans couldn't. Enter had taken advantage of that to mess with him even more, and now he had even more powers. Could he even say he was really still human? 

Disgusted with the depressing turn his own thoughts had taken, he grunted and flipped over to face the wall, TV and lights flickering off with barely a thought.

A few short hours later, Hiromu's breath grew shallow, a whimper escaping from his throat as he stirred into wakefulness with a raging hard-on. 

"Fuck." Even sleep was evidently no longer a refuge from his problems. He hadn't had such a vivid erotic dream about Enter in the last couple years. From hard earned experience he knew he wouldn't be able to get back to sleep until this had been taken care of. Pulling some lotion and tissues out of his bedside table, it was only a few moments before his sweatpants had been stripped off and his hand was fisted around his own slicked up heated flesh. 

He sprawled across the sheets, harsh breaths echoing in his ears as he imagined his hand was Enter's mouth, wrapped tightly around his cock. The Avatar would have him bound to the bed with his wires, unable to move or even bury his hands in the brunette's hair like he wanted. 

He sped up his movements, bottom lip caught between his teeth to keep from crying out. His other hand skated up his chest, pinching and rolling a nipple harshly between thumb and finger, a groan escaping despite his best efforts. Hiromu's imagination retread the well-worn pathways of his own daydreams: Enter sucking him off; Enter holding him down with his inhuman strength and fucking him roughly into the mattress; Enter kissing him, hand wrapped around both their slicked up cocks as they rutted desperately against one another.

Stars burst behind Hiromu's closed eyelids as he tipped over into orgasm, cum momentarily warm against his lower chest before rapidly cooling in the night air. He shivered with aftershocks while groping around for the tissues to shakily clean himself up. 

His tongue ran along his lip, tasting blood as he winced at the sting. He hadn't felt himself biting down that hard, but he was usually pretty vocal and it was pretty obvious now that he'd have to be more careful if he was going to keep jerking off to thoughts of their arch-enemy. The longer this dragged on, the higher the probability he'd be having a very awkward conversation with Ryuuji whose room was just separated from his by one thin wall.


End file.
